The Renewal
by Ember Nickel
Summary: As Cassie grows increasingly frustrated with her postwar life, it is interrupted by a pair of dreamers. 'There is no lack of courage in this mind.'
1. Chapter 1

_Author's note: This story shares many plot elements with "The Hunt", by Sinister Shadow. However, we conceived our ideas independently and this is not meant to be a plagiarism of her work. For more information, please visit her forum._**  
**

**Chapter 1**

My name is Cassie.

Such a simple sentence, with no way of conveying the complexity behind all the other times I'd written it. Yet in retrospect, maybe the war was simpler.

Not for me, of course. I had to deal with the reality of killing long before it sunk into the others. While they shrouded their last names in the pride of fighting an undercover war, I remained acutely aware of everything I'd done.

They were gone. I doubted they could reclaim their idealism. Or, for that matter, that I had any chance at mine. I barely remembered it.

I did what I could, though, trying to forgive Jake for excluding me. This involved throwing myself into work. And kneeling in mud, tape recorder in one hand, notebook and pen in the other, I was at work. In a job where spelling counted.

"Hamee," Toby patiently explained to Ronnie and I. "Ham is a human food, yes? And you have the letter Y to make the ee sound, like in my first name. H-A-M-Y."

"No," Ronnie argued. "My name is R-O-N-N-I-E. The I-E makes the ee sound. Just like in Cassie's name. English has many ways to make the same sound."

"And why are we spelling in English?" she challenged.

"Do you have an alternate idea?"

"Were my people ever consulted as to how to construct this memorial? Did we specify how we wanted it to be set up? Who asked-"

"Quiet, Toby." Her mother, Ket Halpak, strolled over, holding a messy bundle in her hands. "Give friend Ronnie barkgrass."

"Mommy!"

"Yes?"

"I don't want to give Ronnie barkgrass!"

They began arguing, sliding between languages. Ronnie was somewhat amused as he jotted down the details of the conversation.

"What's barkgrass?" I whispered. From a bad angle, I craned to see what was nothing more or less than bark. Wrapped in grass.

"I have no idea. Toby, what do you want?"

"You ask now?" she taunted disdainfully. Really seemed to taunt: with her heightened intelligence came dangerous capacities, ones she rarely used.

"I'm sorry. I'm just doing my best."

"Take barkgrass," Ket urged again.

"No!" Toby turned on her gently. "Ronnie, don't take it."

"Could you explain what it means to you?"

Toby wilted visibly.

"You don't have to use English. Any language you want."

"It means that we're not going to establish the original question. Why does the spelling of names matter when my people are being "honored" with a memorial they cannot appreciate?"

"I'm trying to help you, if you would only tell me what you want."

"I'm trying to tell you something." Half an echo, half an eerie distortion, Toby shot Ronnie's pleading back at him.

"Share!" Ket pressed the barkgrass towards them.

"It cannot help us, Mama." Toby strode off as Ket watched helplessly.

"Teenage rebellion?" Ronnie hypothesized coolly.

"I don't think so: I don't really know how old she is, by her people's standards." Conscious of the attention, I waved Ronnie towards a rocky outcrop.

"It might have been delayed by the pressures put on her: she's not normal, by their standards or ours."

"It's not like everyone has a "stage", though."

"I don't know," he laughed. "When I was twelve, I announced that I was running away and becoming a hippie."

I laughed. "And how long did that last?"

"Less than three days." I twitched. "I realized that I'd forgotten my dog. My parents had been taking care of him the whole time."

With nothing to say, I gazed out over the valley.

He nudged me. "So? I don't get to hear about your revolt?"

"Ronnie," I reminded him, more icily than I intended, "I didn't exactly have a normal adolescence either."

"Eh? Oh…yeah, that's right." Sometimes I couldn't tell if he was really as stupid as he could come across as, or if he was trying to distract me from what had scarred my teenage years.

"That being said," I reminisced slowly, "I _did_ run away…"

"Ha!" he exulted.

"From the war. Less than three days, though I was gone a lot longer."

"Huh?"

"Haven't I ever told you about Aftran?"

"Aftran?" He forced the unfamiliar name out uncomfortably, without even adding "no".

"I guess not." My sentence was humorous, but I didn't laugh. Aftran was too serious for that.

He laughed, though, a simple boyish chortle. "Do I get to hear?"

_Get to…_He was so easygoing and kind, not harsh or pushy. "Sure: it's not like it's a big secret or anything."

He smiled. "Bring it on."

"Well, I saved this girl from a leopard, but she caught me in wolf morph. It turned out she was the host of Aftran 942-"

"A _Yeerk_ saw you in _morph_?" he interrupted. "Why didn't you ever tell me this?"

I tried to recall whether I had talked about Aftran in my book. I hadn't had much to say about morphing caterpillar, though I mentioned "natural morphing" in the appendix. With Karen still a minor, her privacy was important. Not interested in "you didn't ask" or some other humorous reply, I tried to regain my thread of thought exactly where I'd left off. "who would found the Yeerk Peace Movement."

Ronnie stared blankly at me. "The what?"

Very good idea I hadn't brought up my time as a _nothlit_. "A movement of Yeerks who opposed taking involuntary hosts. You remember meeting Illim?" I prodded.

"Oh…yeah," he said vaguely, as if he had no such recollection but didn't want me to press him.

"She helped-save Ax's life." My voice cracked a little as I remembered what good it had done in the long run.

Ronnie was by now totally confused. I didn't bother to explain: I didn't think he'd have been able to understand.

We stood in silence until he asked, "Ready to leave?"

"Oh? Yeah, I guess so."

"You should give me the morphing power: it would be a lot faster."

I knew Ronnie a lot better than I knew most people, but still couldn't quite tell whether he was making a joke. "Now that we have photon engines in our cars, they don't pollute." This had been another trade from the Andalites, with the human contribution being the cacao plant.

Ronnie knew better than to argue with me on environmental issues. We walked down the mountain to where our car was stowed and left silently, tire tracks spraying the barkless grass with mud.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

I pulled up Illim's phone number on my computer once I was inside my apartment. "Ronnie, come over here," I shouted through the wall as I dialed it.

He loped over from the adjacent room. "What's this?"

"This is Illim." He picked up. "Hello?" I put the phone on the side of my head closer to Ronnie.

"Hello, who's this?" he replied. It really had been a while.

"This is Cassie." I recognized the voice. "Are you still in Tidwell?" I noted Ronnie's darkening glare.

"Yes, he is," Tidwell laughed.

"Hi to both of you. Do you remember my, um..." It was difficult to know what to call Ronnie. We were certainly a lot closer than just co-workers, more than even friends. Yet I felt reluctance at admitting that. "Didn't you meet Ronnie Chambers?"

"We don't remember it," they replied after a pause to think.

"Okay. Well, let me put him on."

I turned to hand off the phone, but he'd already left.

"Or not." Reluctant to hang up, I flopped down on my bed and shifted the phone. "So how's life?"

"Can't complain. I'm trying to find Tidwell a girlfriend-hang on-He's just looking for an excuse to move out, the-"

They broke off and I waited anxiously before finally asking "Still there?".

"Oh yeah," they laughed. "Sorry, we're too used to arguing silently."

"Arguing?" My natural peacemaker stepped in.

"Nah, just teasing. Anyhow, how's work on that memorial going?"

I sighed. "Not well. Toby-you know the Hork-Bajir seer?-is against the general concept, so I'm not getting any names on that end, and the web gives me three different spellings of Mr. Chapman's first name. Melissa's unlisted, so I can't find her to check."

They laughed. "You can't really complain, can you?"

"I really shouldn't."

I was the last of the Animorphs, with fame and fortune that would have made the Marco of five years previously turn so green with envy it would look like he was morphing a crocodile. I had loving parents and a boyfriend of sorts. I could swim and fly and _be_ however I was…whoever I was.

"Yet I do."

"I could make it an assignment for my class: find out Cassie's phone number."

"There are such things as online phone books," I smiled.

"And ways of opting out."

"I wouldn't want to complicate things for your class."

"But surely you already are unlisted?"

"No."

"That's impossible!" they blurted. "You'd get…no time to yourself! Everyone would want a minute of your time."

I'd never really considered that angle. "Surprisingly enough, I'm generally left alone. Maybe…maybe now, with fewer…" I trailed off.

I guessed that it was Tidwell, generally less emotional, who was speaking. "Fewer other Animorphs to interview?"

Weeping, I nodded into the phone, then realized they couldn't hear me. "I guess I'm leaving. I'll have to find Melissa eventually." A truth of sorts. It was something to do, which I needed.

"Take care of yourself," they counseled.

"Sure." I hung up tersely, then berated myself for alienating (no pun intended) people who cared about me. "Ronnie?"

"Yeah?" he called.

"I'm heading out to find Melissa. Be back later."

"What? When?"

I laughed. "Just think of it as a belated teenage rebellion. Running away to see the world."

In spite of everything, I was still only nineteen.

I drove aimlessly, turning up the radio (was Benny Angle a "blast from the past?" So much had changed.) with no apparent idea what I was doing or where I was going. Melissa could have been anywhere.

But I drove on for hours back to our hometown. Our school was still there, but appeared empty in the summer heat. I tested the door: open.

A plaque in the foyer listed the past principals, but not assistants. My luck. I turned, ready yet reluctant to leave, and heard distant chatter.

In a moment of paranoia, I wondered if the Yeerk pool was still under the school. But the voices were free, though frenzied. Children.

"Heya! Over here!"

The gym was half-full, the city's kids' basketball league in full swing. The wall was draped with various pennants from the school and a single jersey, framed.

"What's that?" I asked one of the moms in the bleachers, hoping I wasn't too conspicuous.

She smiled. "That's a retired number."

I didn't see anything particularly post-work about the digit eight, so I tried again. "What does that mean?"

"It means nobody here will wear it again."

Knowing I'd seen someone in it, I looked down. "That guy. On the yellow team."

"Nobody actually playing for this school."

"Oh, okay."

I waited and watched the kids enjoying their simple game. Understanding I had no chance of finding Melissa there, I simply relaxed.

My eyes involuntarily flickered up to the "retired" jersey. Finally, I asked, "Why?"

"Excuse me?" She'd forgotten what we were talking about: no real surprise.

"Why can't anybody wear that number eight again?"

"Oh, it's in honor of Tom Berenson-Jake's brother." I realized quickly that I hadn't been recognized, and that that was a very lucky thing. "He was killed during the final battle."

Apparently, then, everyone knew what "final battle" signified. "Oh, okay. Wasn't there some assistant principal from this school that died too?"

She shrugged. "Honey, I'm not a historian."

Well then. "Okay, thanks."

"Sorry I couldn't help you." She did sound genuinely sympathetic.

"Do you know of anyone who would know?"

"Nope. You could maybe look online."

My computer was back in my apartment, but I wasn't interested in going back for a while. "Is that all there is? When in doubt, go online? Do we talk to each other anymore?"

She seemed uncomfortable. "Um, I guess I don't know what you're talking about. I'd assume he'd be on wikigalaxy, but if you wanted to ask somebody else that would be fine."

She didn't get it. Maybe nobody did. Only nineteen, I was still so far divergent from my peers and the world in general. My real peers-the only people that I could trust for three crucial years of my life-were dead, or at least dead to me.

I looked up at the wall again. There was a scoreboard there too, electronic and unfeeling like the world was becoming.

It was off. The kids in this league played for fun.

So I stayed and watched. Without much knowledge of the game, I saw a player on the yellow team accidentally elbow a player from the blue team. Concerned, he joined the blue huddle, and soon the yellow coach was leading the rest of the team over. The blue kid was fine: he got back up and played.

And if I hadn't stayed, I wouldn't have heard the slow clap for them all.

A faded young woman, hair limp, had entered. Acknowledging the empathy that overshadowed team allegiances, her eyes, like mine, were drawn to the silent but thunderous jersey on the wall.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Maybe my "temporal grounding", as the Ellimist put it, was more than "sub". Time had flowed past me, but I couldn't move on. Perhaps the internet woman missed seeing who I was, but I stuck out like a black-and-white photograph in a color album.

And Melissa found me. Drifting over without attracting a glance, she stood next to me. We had both been short for our ages, and were leveling out, not likely to grow much taller. Or maybe we were average, but both overshadowed by a higher figure.

"Hey, Cassie." Her voice was dry.

I hadn't even recognized her after coming all that way. "Hi." Then I did a double-take. "Melissa?"

She nodded wistfully. "Yeah."

"Oh, man." Energy bubbled up in me. "So, um, how do you spell your dad's first name?"

She looked at me quizzically.

"Sorry." I forgot that she didn't have the backstory. In a way, she was almost as out-of-context as I was. "I'm constructing, um, a memorial for the, er, war victims? And it was just difficult to spell."

Fatigue emanated from her. "H-E-D-R-I-C-K."

"Hed…I'm never going to be able to remember that." I almost suggested that she e-mail it to me, but that would have defeated the purpose. Or something.

"That's too bad."

I remembered the arguments Toby and I had over spelling.

"I suppose…If you come to my house, there's something I can try and show you. An image, almost…Sometimes, I feel like my pet understands what I'm thinking, and can talk back to me. It's stupid, I know, but maybe he…it, I can't really tell the difference-I bet you could-could give you a flash of him? My dad? And then…that wouldn't help you with the spelling though…" The rambling trailed off.

"Melissa," I said gently, "are you okay?"

"No," she shrugged.

"How can I help?"

"You can't help," she said accusingly.

I decided to change things. "Could you help me?

"What do you need help with?"

"I don't know, my life."

"All I can do is spell my dad's name." Her bitter sarcasm laced the air.

"No, that's not what I…" I tried to keep my frustration under control, then bit my lip. "I do need that. It's a real start."

She narrowed her eyes. "And you haven't found it without me?"

"Conflicting versions."

Emotion flashed before eroding. "How _long_ has it been? This ain't ancient Egypt hieroglyphics-they could have gotten it right!"

"Tell me again," I said with as much surety as I could, "and I'll remember."

She spelled it out, letter-by-letter, each spoken with a quiet force. They seared into my mind.

Having no reply of appropriate magnitude, I waited for the somber feelings to dissipate, watching the cold second hand on the gym's analog clock. It traced a circle around…and around…and they didn't. Reluctantly, I took my turn in the conversation. "So, why are you unlisted?" Anticlimactic, sure, but the only thing I had.

"I don't want people bothering me about the past." She abruptly skipped to the end of the sentence, probably omitting "like you".

"Oh. Sorry."

"No. Teach them the right way, and maybe someone will learn."

I couldn't promise anything, but I wasn't going to tell her that. "I'll try."

Looking down to the court, I noted that the games were winding down. There was no dramatic whistle at the end, no zeroes on the clock. Just high-fives that the kids exchanged with smiles on their faces, those metallic juice bags, and the wait until the next week.

I silently left Melissa with my feeble attempt at a promise and drove back. Benny Angle was on the radio again, though I wasn't listening. It was around ten when I realized I couldn't make it back to my apartment: if I kept trying to drive for much longer, I'd veer off the road. Pulling off of the highway, I tried to read the signs in a dark suburb unsuccessfully.

Having no alternative, I finally turned to the glaring letters of a Hilton. Not only did the name have a negative connotation, the blinding sign's glow obscured the stars. I checked in tersely: no, I did not have a reservation. To the credit of the tired receptionist, she did not ask if it was really "the" Cassie or for an autograph.

I had a luxurious room, which I didn't particularly want, but it had free dental floss. I dawdled with it, a second wind propelling me to do anything but sleep. My mind was still frantic, trying to keep track of tedious things.

Eventually, I lay horizontally, the closest I could get to being comfortable. I was alone, tired, and unsure of where I was or where I was going. But that wasn't what worried me.

What worried me was how normal it seemed.

I woke up, checked out, and was on the road so early I didn't think the sun had come up. (It had: the clouds just masked it.) "The road" being one that cutting through the suburb and onto the highway, where I drove for several miles before realizing I was going the wrong way.

But it was an empty stretch, with no exits to pull off and reorient myself in sight, which was a lot on the flat, expansive, visa. I'd have to keep going until I got to one: even in the open area with no law enforcement, I never considered actually making a U-turn, so rigorous were my morals.

That didn't stop me, however, from pushing my feet against the floor for no reason at all. Acceleration was computerized, steering linked to a satellite network to reduce accidents, and I was one of the least likely people to "put the pedal to the metal", a lingering expression of carbon monoxide pollution.

Yet I wanted to get somewhere, and if going backwards was the only way to do it, I would.

Eventually, I pulled off at the first exit I found. It might even have been my hometown, that's how empty it felt-or how distracted I seemed. I read the signs: the sun was up by then, and they were there for me.

I turned around and pulled back onto the freeway.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

I was home by noon, and ravenous. I cruised around, finding a random place for brunch. I was the only customer there, and dug into some French toast.

It was a small place, and I got the cynical feeling that it might go out of business soon. "Cynical" being a contrast from my normal state of mind…or something. "Normal" for me hadn't been anybody else's "normal" for the last six years.

I paid, left an extra tip, and left. The streets were bewildering, diagonals slicing across…and this was my own city?

Eventually I made it back to the apartment building. Ronnie smiled. "Hey, Cass. How'd it go?"

"Fine," I said taciturnly.

"Some brats called for you. I told them to leave you alone."

"Thanks," I said, not even noticing. Probably Tidwell's idea of a joke.

I booted up my computer and typed in the correct spelling of Hedrick, even though I doubted that I'd ever forget it. The mud I had tracked in stained the carpet. I didn't care.

I struck vaguely at the keys, unsuccessfully trying to find something new and interesting. "Ronnie, you're better with this stuff than I am. Can you help me?"

He looked critically down at the mouse. "You might want to…plug it in."

I did so.

It significantly facilitated my mindless search, and even made it less mindless. I found a website with garish green text on a black page. With plenty of exclamation points but little else in the way of grammar, it lashed out against an "Andalite consperacy" to "hide the TRUTH".

It hurt my eyes to follow the links through, but eventually I reached the most interesting page. In various fonts and sizes, it was the final resting place of names that had been copied-and-pasted from various e-mails to the webmaster. Yeerkish names, repeated and misspelled, of people in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was a free website, with popups and popdowns and not enough server space to hold seventeen thousand names: it cut out between two letters, had several gibberish characters, and then stopped abruptly.

"Hey, maybe you can help me with this."

He approached, sinking his strong hands into my shoulders. "What's this? Some third grader learning how to make her letters and numbers?"

Too tired to argue, I replied. "No, these are the names of the Yeerks who were on that transfer ship."

"What transfer ship?"

Sometimes I couldn't tell if he was deliberately slow. "The one Jake emptied."

"Emptied?" He straightened up. "You don't have to apologize for him."

"I'm not apologizing."

"Ha. So, what do you need help with?"

"What can I check this against? It doesn't seem very legit." I looked at his strained face. "Go ahead and laugh if you want."

After walking around the room while doing so, he leaned back towards the screen. "Doesn't _seem_ legit? Whoo-eee, a little idealistic."

"So what would be official?"

"You know better than me. Ask your…friends."

My eyes narrowed, or maybe I was hiding tears. "Who are you talking about?"

"Whoever it was you just called up?"

"Oh." I had to think. "Illim and Tidwell?"

"Yeah, them."

"Good idea."

I reached down towards the phone. It strained my back, so I leapt off the computer chair and hit redial: I hadn't called anybody else since the last time we talked. "Hi Illim, Tidwell."

"Hello, Cassie," they said, sounding slightly amused.

"Say, I have a question for you guys."

"Indeed?"

"Yep. Is there an official list of the Yeerks on that transfer ship that Jake, uh…" I was letting Ronnie get to me. "emptied?"

"An official list? We're not sure."

"Okay. Do you know where I could check?"

"No."

"Okay. Don't look too hard, I don't need you going out of your way for me, but if you ever come across one please let me know. I'd like an official one for the memorial project."

"Oh yeah? How's that coming al-"

The line went dead.

Perplexed, I turned around. Ronnie was backing away from the wall: I looked down at it to find that the cord had come unplugged. Annoyed, I plugged it back in, but they'd already hung up.

I was going to redial, but Ronnie interrupted. "You're going to put the Yeerks on the memorial?"

"Assuming I can find the list."

"Well, yeah, okay. But…why?"

"Because they were killed," I said exasperatingly.

"Yeah, but…" He really didn't have enough skill to make a coherent argument.

However, I had a guess as to where he was coming from, and wanted to stop any objections before they started. "What if a Hork-Bajir that was killed had been a voluntary host?"

"I didn't think they had any-what does this have to do with anything?"

I persisted, ignoring his sputtering. "They'd still go on the memorial because it doesn't matter which "side"-" I made mocking fingers in the air-"they're on."

He narrowed his eyes as if in concern. "You know there were such things as sides."

"Yes, which won't be relevant."

He looked as if he was trying to stare right through me or focus on something behind me. Giving up, he simply turned and left.

So I tried to find the phone number for the memorial design group, which was difficult as the only last name I remembered of anybody that worked there was that of a young intern. But first names were easy: polysyllabic Andalite given names, human first names from different cultures…For some reason, knowing that I knew the first names better pleased me.

Perhaps it was greedy, after everything, to be pleased. But I didn't care: I was stymied because I didn't know last names. First names, instead, provided me with the familiarity that felt so lacking in the computerized world, where mental walls instead of hermeneutic seals cut us off from each other.

Yes, I did feel morally superior to the people whose system had beaten me. And I didn't feel guilty about it.

Maybe I'd earned the right to arrogance, because I didn't feel like I had much else.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

When the phone did ring, I twitched violently. Had the group spontaneously decided to call me?

I was never expected in the office: I certainly didn't financially need to go to work. The long hours spent up in the valley were as much personal as anything else. But maybe they were wondering where I'd been? The ability to pick up and walk out of town spontaneously, I reflected, was unavailable to many.

While I was deep in pondering, Ronnie picked up. "Yes…No, she is not! Please leave us in peace!" He slammed it down angrily.

I turned, bewildered.

"Those kids again. I can't believe they have the nerve to try again."

"What kids?" I asked blearily.

"They prank-called us while you were out."

I shrugged, dazedly.

"We," he changed attitude abruptly, "should go out to dinner."

It got my attention. "We never go out to dinner."

"Right. So we should now."

I threw out my arms obligingly. "Where to?"

It was a quiet Italian restaurant: a cozy place where my muddy shoes felt inappropriate. It surprised me, at times, how people expected me to be picturesque. The actress who had portrayed me in some film helped to perpetuate this mythos. While Rachel was attractive in a morphing suit, I felt more comfortable in a sweater. The restaurant was warm, and not just by the light of the pseudoromantic candles.

Ronnie seemed engrossed in the garlic bread, turning it over and examining it from every angle. Finally, he abruptly crammed a great deal into his mouth and bit it off. He looked like there was something he wanted to tell me, but had to wait until he'd swallowed the mouthful.

"Toby," he finally said. "She's a nice girl."

"Mm-hmm," I nodded distantly.

"She's, well, she could be right about that spelling thing. It's difficult for us to know how different species want to be commemorated."

This sounded oddly liberal from him. I waited.

"We don't even know if the Yeerks want in on this at all."

"No," I said politely. "We could call and ask."

"We're working on a budget, y'know. If they're going to want the same kind of formatting, that could get to be a lot of names. That was a pretty long list on that website thing, and the official thing, if there is one, would be longer."

"For some reason I don't imagine money being a constraint for me."

"Right, but they're pretty far into the design already."

"Really? That's cool. What are they thinking of?"

"I think an eagle-type thing, just about to take off in flight."

"And where are they going to put the names?" I led him down any path, just one to keep him off the subject of Yeerks.

"I think engraved into the feathers, you know how it has different ridges like that?"

I smiled. "I've worked with a lot of eagles, and none of them have had ridges with names carved on them. We go for bands instead."

He seemed like he wanted to roll his eyes, then thought better of it. Fortunately for both of us, the waiter showed up (I expected that me being myself had raised us to the head of the list) and we got our food (pepperoni pizza for him, spinach lasagna for me). Ronnie, a much faster eater than me, ploughed through as I sliced my dish: first carefully, in neat squares, then, as I stared vaguely at the wall, without looking. Abruptly, I cut my finger, and instinctively stuck it in my mouth to suck off the few tiny blood drops. Focusing belatedly on the table, I noticed Ronnie staring oddly at me while surreptitiously glancing around to see if anyone else could see Cassie the Animorph, Cassie the savior of humanity, apparently preferring the taste of her own nail to the lasagna. With my other hand, I pointed to the knife and rolled my eyes.

"Oh!" he said. "Are you okay?"

"Sure." I pulled the finger out of my mouth: fortunately, it was my index finger. "Not really hungry, though."

"You have to be hungry for something."

"Pie would be nice. Maybe later tonight."

"No, I mean _hungry_. What do you want?"

"I want to go home," I said, uncomprehending. I tried to make light of the matter. "If I can't even hold a knife, then we've got a problem."

"You want something," he urged, "and I can't give it to you. You're miserable. Living in a funk. Living in the past. I just want to make you feel good, I…" He paused, as if abruptly changing the direction of the conversation. "You know what I think about you."

"Ronnie, I don't know what _I_ think. About anything. I don't know _if_ I think."

"I know you do," he said gently.

"So you tell me what I should do."

"I don't want to make your decisions for you."

"I've never had to make decisions for myself. Before the war started, I was twelve-a kid. I'm still a kid."

"You've gone through more than anyone has."

"But that doesn't mean I know what to do."

"If I help you-try to do things right for you-will you be mad at me if I get it wrong?"

I stared at him, perhaps appearing a little more revulsed than I actually felt.

"I just want to be able to try to do what I want to do. Without fear."

"And what do you want to do?"

He smiled. "Right now, eat some pizza."

"Go ahead."

As he did so, I became aware that I was making him uncomfortable by no longer eating. I lingered like this for a while, until guilt at what could have been vague enjoyment of the process propelled me out of my seat. "I'm going to the bathroom," I announced. And did, isolating myself in a stall. My brain shut off, and I sat mindlessly until I was jolted back into reality by a flush from a neighboring stall. I rose and exited.

"You okay?" Ronnie asked, concern clear in his voice. He had been waiting outside.

"Yeah."

"You were in there a while."

"Oh."

"Anything wrong?"

I looked at him for a long time, witheringly.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

It rained overnight.

"Lots of grass to mow?" I sleepily teased Ronnie when he entered my room in the morning.

He was not in the mood for humor. "Remember that we live in an apartment building? We're entitled to about a square inch of grass, floors below us. Make that mud, now."

I smiled at Ronnie's use of the word "inch": a quaint anachronism. He had never really gotten over the globalization that the pundits had predicted would follow extraterrestrial contact. While the rest of us used centimeters, he still believed in a monolithic superpower. Then again, it was hypocritical of me to condemn him for nostalgia. "I'm too used to the farm," I smiled.

"Maybe you should go home for a while. We could take a vacation together."

I shrugged. "Maybe."

His reply shrug was tense, a "what-am-I-going-to-do-with-you" type gesture. "I'd better get started on that grass." Winking, almost leering, he exited.

As I stood, trying to figure out where he was going, the phone rang.

Unassumingly, I picked it up.

"Hello," said a high-pitched voice. "Is Cassie there?"

"Um." My mouth was suddenly dry. "Yes, this is me."

"Hi!" she continued brightly.

"We have to introduce ourselves," another voice said, this one a male.

"Um, I'm Cassie. I guess you've heard of me," I stammered.

"No, _us_. I'm Darwin Gervais. This is my sister, Madra."

"Hi!" Madra repeated.

"Um, hello." I was at a loss for words. Who were these people? Literally: their names raised more questions than they answered. A vague suspicion tickled my mind. "Did Iniss or Tidwell have you call?" Even as I said it, I became aware of how _young_ they sounded.

"No," Darwin said succinctly.

"Who are they?" Madra asked, curiously.

"Um, just some friends of mine."

"Are they off with Jake and Marco?"

"Don't be stupid," Darwin lashed at her. "How could they have us call if they were out in space?"

"No, they're not," I answered before they could get any more heated. It had been a coincidence, then. But how had Darwin known to say "No" so quickly? "Darwin, do you know them?"

"No. But they didn't have us call: it was all Madra's idea."

He was a quick thinker, but sharp-tongued. "How old are you?"

"Thirteen," he quickly answered.

"The same age as you were when you started fighting the Yeerks," Madra prompted, as if I needed reminding.

She seemed younger than him, but maybe he was just cynical for his age. "What about you?"

"What about me?"

"How old are you?"

"Thirteen…" She seemed confused, or overly patient, as if explaining something to a (even younger?!) child.

"Oh!" I was startled, somewhat. "You're twins?"

"Yep."

I didn't remember what it was like to be thirteen: I only had a few months of it before age, like so much else, became irrelevant. I was, however, fairly confident that telephoning random celebrities was not part of my normal routine. "Why did you call?"

"We want to help you," Darwin said firmly.

"That's nice," I muttered vaguely.

"Well, we want you to help us help your friends," Madra expounded.

I blinked.

"Nobody knows where they are, but we think you do. They need help, and we want to help them."

Jake's words echoed to me. "The best thing you can do is to stay on Earth and grow up. Make the world we fought to protect a good one." I consigned them to indifference without thinking about what I was saying.

"Excuse me," Darwin said, "but I _am_ grown up. I've had a gun pointed _at_ my own chest, _by_ my own fingers. I think that qualifies."

I was speechless, and quickly realized that my role could be a lot more than random celebrity. "What happened?"

"I was infested," he informed me simply.

"And you were…" I still didn't get it.

"I was given to a Yeerk who was under threat of Kandrona starvation and ordered to kill itself and me. Considering the alternatives, it accepted." The tone of his voice was what chilled me the most: he was matter-of-fact about the entire incident. Not even a liar could be that blunt.

"Such atrocities couldn't have happened for years. There is ample supply of Kandrona to any Yeerk that needs it."

"It took place years ago."

If he really was thirteen (and he spoke like a much older man), he would only have been a small child when it happened. Once again, I doubted him-yet he'd sounded so truthful. Maybe he was lying about his age?

I decided to test him. Conniving for me, but I wasn't who I once was. "When's your birthday?"

He was silent, perhaps wondering why I'd asked such a stupid and irrelevant question, but Madra was eager to make conversation. "May 27. When's yours?"

"Same as your brother's?"

"We have the same birthday," Darwin clarified. "What, did you think I was born at like 11:59 May _26_?"

"No, I was just making sure. What year?"

Madra told me, and the arithmetic checked out. I had no idea what to make of the situation. Either I was dealing with a lunatic who was holding a little girl (she sounded her age) hostage, or his implausible story was true. In either case, I was stymied.

"So the fact that you've attempted to change the subject so drastically means that you know where they are and are trying to stop us. Why? Because we're kids?" Darwin challenged.

"I _don't_ know where they are," I whined immaturely. In retrospect, that was probably where I lost control: by tacitly agreeing with their premise, I surrendered the upper hand.

"How about Aximili?" Madra prodded. "I mean, one of the heroes of the world goes missing and nobody _does_ anything about it?"

"He's a hero, yes, but so is everyone who does something good. It would be wrong to waste all our attention trying to find him when there is so much more we need to do."

"Waste?" Darwin caught my poor word choice immediately.

"Well, spend. There's a lot that needs help in the world."

"And what are you doing? Sitting around?"

"I'm spending my time on the phone with you two." I was growing dangerously edgy, about to snap.

"Good. So you know there's a problem. So what are you going to do about it?"

"Hang up."

I did.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Time passed.

The phone rang again, and Ronnie, who had by whatever time it was come back, picked it up, nodded a bit, and threw it at me.

"Hello?" I muttered.

"Hi Cassie!" It was Stephanie, my boss. Or maybe not. I didn't really know the ranks. "How's it going?"

"Um…okay."

"Finding those Hork-Bajir names?"

"Uh, that's not going too well actually. Toby's fairly belligerent about the whole process."

"Hmm." Concern was evident in her voice. "Well, do what you can, okay?"

"I'll try."

"Okay. See you around." She hung up.

"You want me to go try?" Ronnie asked.

"Getting the names? Only if you want to."

"Sure, why not?" He casually sauntered out. As he did so, the dial tone began to beep.

I lethargically reset the phone. As I did so, I noticed a soreness in my chest, but couldn't identify why. Paranoia spiked: I knew this was a sign of a heart attack. Instinctively, I reached for the phone again, fingers slow to peck out a number that they should have been able to fly across the buttons in order to dial.

A ring, another ring, two more. "Hello," a gruff but kind voice greeted.

"Daddy!" I cried childishly.

"you have reached-" I slammed down the phone as he began rattling out our number.

Fortunately, by then I was fairly confident that I wasn't having a heart attack. It was no great pain I felt, but it lingered, and nagged at my mind. Impulsively, I glanced at the site of the pain, and noticed the faint outline of the telephone's earpiece fading.

It hadn't been that long since Ronnie had chucked it at me-playfully, I had thought-but time was a blur for me. I had chalked it up to being an "anomaly", a part of the Ellimist's plan with irrelevant personal identity. But whatever he'd wanted out of me, he'd long since gotten. I was independent, and perhaps the only thing that held me back, retarded the flow of time around me, was my attitude.

At least, I reasoned, it wasn't my _stomach_ that hurt. I'd outgrown the agonizing cramps of my earlier years, and they certainly put minor soreness into perspective. And the malaise I felt was nothing unusual.

Was that wrong? I thought back to my distant past, when I was younger than the two children that had called me. Or tried to, at least. Riding horses, working in the barn…hanging out with Rachel…Ignorance had been bliss.

So I had been right to try and squelch them, hadn't I? I didn't want to be responsible for having them turn out like me. But if Darwin had been right, he had nothing left to lose.

There had to be some way to verify his story. Judging from past experience, the Internet didn't seem to be the way to do so.

Then I remembered Karen, once again. Even the youngest children could have a contribution to make-or be useful for the Yeerks. If she had been a Controller, there was no reason why he could not have, as well. The trick would be determining his importance.

I ran a web search for his name, or at least how I guessed it was spelled. No results. "Darwin" wasn't that odd of a name…fairly rare, actually. I tried his sister's, which I couldn't even guess…"Modra", had it been? Few results, but the helpful internet asked if I meant "Madra". With nothing to lose but a couple minutes of my time, I clicked "Yes".

That brought data. Images and statistical surveys of some extraterrestrial body. A quick glance told me that it was the Yeerk homeworld's second moon. Curiouser and curiouser…Was it possible that they had been aliases?

I was able to remember Karen's surname, but couldn't find her family online. Remembering her father's wealth, their desire for anonymity was not a surprise. So I was still back at square one. But I was trying to find the children, instead of the other way around. Square negative one. The ball was in my court, and I had no idea what to do with it. My lack of athleticism didn't help, either. For all I knew, one of the kids playing basketball could have been Darwin, and I had no idea. How long ago had that been? I didn't want to try and measure time.

But time, apparently, wanted to measure me. I had saved the universe, but it wasn't done with me. I still had to go through the motions and pretend I was doing something of importance.

Like tectonic plates, thoughts rumbled in my head: slowly but with power. Jake had left me on earth to look after the Hork-Bajir, or so he claimed. But Ronnie had usurped even that.

I did have the memorial, on which I was making no progress. Would there be a memorial for Jake, Marco, Tobias, and Ax? Or had I been right in the glib rhetoric I'd spouted to Madra-it was better if we moved on? I, of course, had no plans to do any such thing.

Could Darwin? My "infestations" had been voluntary compacts: what he described seemed torturous. Perhaps he needed help more profound than he was receiving: that implied that I, too, could "get over" my current grief. Not likely, not for a while.

Impulsively, I looked up last names for my city: no Gervaises. The broader area had several dozen. I didn't want to call them all, especially since it had been the kids that called and the parents would be likely to pick up. Compounding that was the fact that names like "Madra" and "Darwin" were exceptionally rare: I hadn't heard of anyone with either of those as first names. And if someone realized who was calling…No, I wouldn't call.

So was there any way for us to communicate again? As I became aware that that was what I so fervently wanted, if only to absorb their idealism, I remembered Ronnie's mention of a couple of "brats". They were perseverant.

They would find me again.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Ronnie tore in in a panic. "Cassie! I'm here!"

"Hello," I muttered, having noticed.

"Thank goodness. I was running so late."

"Did you bring your cell phone?" I asked, not maliciously, but just out of curiosity.

He glanced wildly around, seemingly manic. "No! I forgot."

"Don't worry about it. Did you get the names?"

He looked at me in pure blankness. "What names?"

That was not good. "The names of the Hork-Bajir killed in the battle," I enunciated slowly.

"Oh!" He pulled off his backpack and rummaged through. "Yeah, Toby was surprisingly-I mean…I got them. Right here." His sloppy handwriting nevertheless gave me the required information.

"This is great!" I exulted. "Thanks!"

"Oh, you're welcome." There seemed to be an odd emotion in his eyes that he worked quickly to suppress. "Any time."

"You can go ahead and call Stephanie: she was bugging me about them earlier." The words tumbled out inaccurately: I had not been bugged, or at least shouldn't have. I was simply irritable.

"Sure." The buttons flew under his touch. "Hey there…Yeah, this is Ronnie. I've got the Hork-Bajir names. Ok, you're typing this up? J-A-R-A-space-H-A-M-E-E. Next, P-E-B…"

It sounded discordant. Transcribing them letter by letter lost the beauty of the names as they were meant to be spoken.

After what seemed like a too-short length of time, he finished up. "Yeah, that's it…No, there aren't any more." There was an odd tinge in his voice, as if of disappointment. "I don't-no, I don't think so! Of course, thank you very much!" He hung up. "Cassie, we forgot to find out the names of the Hork-Bajir-Controllers. I'll go see if Toby can help." He took off before I had time to digest what he had said. How could Toby help us get Controllers' names? If she had an Empire contact, fine, but wouldn't Ronnie be better off getting that information directly? Unless, as was quite possible, the Empire didn't bother to record their hosts' names. Still, something seemed disconnected and hasty about the entire situation.

I looked at the clock, then out the window to see whether it was morning or evening. Maybe Ronnie had had to stay overnight…but it shouldn't have taken that long to gather up that much data.

For the first time, I felt jealous of my friends. "Taking care of" the Hork-Bajir had turned into dwelling on death, and Ronnie seemed to be more than willing to pull my weight. At least they had had some true purpose, even if it was short-lived like them.

The phone rang, and I leapt on it immediately. "Hello?" I must have been desperate: the antiquarian extension cord coiled around me in a sign of my lunge's obsession. This was my social contact: the plastic helix pressed tight against me.

A strange, gravelly voice, spoke. "I'm very sorry to bother you, but you may be the only one who can help me. I am trapped between animal and human morph, and injured. I know you are a veterinarian as well as an _estreen_. Can you copy down an address at which to meet me?"

"Um…" My mind functioned as if submerged, slowly and bogged down by fluid. "Of course." I opened the simplest text editor on my computer.

The unfortunate _nothlit_ rattled it off.

"Thanks. I'll be there soon."

I didn't have any idea what equipment to bring on such a mission: I should have asked in which form they were stuck. Finally settling on just a first-aid kit, I decided speed was the most important.

When I got outside, I remembered a small but crucial fact: Ronnie had taken the car.

Exasperation growing, I dashed back up the stairs, worried that the elevator would be too far away from the lobby. Fumbling with my keys, I tried to unlock the door but failed. Angrily pushing on the handle, I found that it opened immediately: naivety had caused me to never lock it in the first place.

I did a web search for taxi services in my area and called the first one. "Hullo?" muttered the guy on the other end.

"Hello. Please send a taxi to-" I rattled off my address.

"Hey, aren't you-"

"Yes," I said shortly, hanging up. I printed out the address and, more tired, descended the stairs again.

A cab came very quickly, probably due to my celebrity. I gave the driver the piece of paper: fortunately, I had remembered to bring my wallet as well as the first-aid kit.

He drove onto the highway and we blended in: a rare but welcome occurrence. I peeked out the window for a while, noticing the various and diverse people around me, then decided that since I didn't really want any of _them_ looking at _me_, it would be polite to stop.

The taxi driver dropped me off in a short suburban cul-de-sac. "This the place?" he asked dubiously.

"Um, is that what it says on the paper? I've never been here before."

"Yep."

"Okay then." I handed him a fistful of cash, then exited in worry. Was it already too late?

I looked at the specific house the caller had told me, though it was essentially indistinguishable from the others. Was the _nothlit_ too small to notice? But it had had an understandable voice, which meant some semblance of a human mouth, and it had called me, so some sort of human fingers.

Unsure whether I should ring the doorbell or search around the back, I tentatively moved towards the side of the fairly small house. I was in a quiet, peaceful neighborhood, with nothing seeming to imply that a half-human mutant would have anything to do there. But then again, maybe that's why they had called me: not wanting to provoke the attention of the neighbors.

A wooden gate separated the front lawn from the back: a small playset, proportioned for kindergarteners, was located behind the house. As I looked around, it flew open, and a girl ran up and embraced me. "You came!" she beamed.

Indeed I had.

Behind us, a taller boy tramped up roguishly. In his hand, he gripped an odd plastic device.

Seeing me study it, he clarified. "Voice changer. I got it at a department store for $14.99."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

"Darwin?" I asked, almost unbelieving. "Madra?"

"Yep!" the latter beamed, still hugging me awkwardly.

"Why did you make up some crazy scheme? Why didn't you just call me again?"

Darwin looked at me disdainfully. "Because of how you treated us last time."

"Oh yeah, sorry." My personal change of mind, had, of course, not been communicated to them.

But as I mentally chastised myself for such stupidity, I felt a momentary twinge of panic. They had lured me here by a trap: was it possibly a trap within a trap? The only way to be sure they were all they seemed would be to keep an eye on both of them for two hours.

I'd done more insane feats. "So, what time is it?" I asked casually.

"About noon," Darwin said taciturnly.

"Have you had lunch?"

"No."

"How about pizza? My treat. Where's the best stuff out here?"

Madra quickly informed me: mercifully, she had to release me to do so. I let Darwin place the phone call inside (transparent sliding doors allowed me to watch him), and then invited him back out.

However, there wasn't much to do. As he angrily informed me, the playset was "for babies". I wasn't sure how to bring up our earlier conversation, but he didn't seem to be in any mood to talk.

Mercifully, the pizza came quickly. I surreptitiously checked the time (12:30), and we sat down to eat. There was only one other person inside the house, and she was just putting a half-eaten bowl of fruit salad in the refrigerator. An overweight woman, she didn't look anything like the twins.

They seemed to ignore her as they dug into the pizza. Darwin had ordered sausage; Madra, anchovy.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing at my third.

"Spinach," I smiled.

"Spinach pizza? Sounds gross."

"Not really," I smiled distantly.

"Can I try some?" Madra asked.

"Of course!" I cut off a bite for her and watched her curious expression as she tasted it.

Spinach pizza was an oddity in California, but not at all in Chicago. Some of my earliest and haziest memories involved Mom and Dad running around in a frenzy to find exotic pet-sitters, then herding me onto a plane. I would stare out the window and trace patterns on the condensation, a bag of coloring books at my feet for the long ride…

Then, we would be in the big city. Trips on the El train up to an apartment building, a big girl (as I thought of her from the perspective of a young child) yelling, Mommy crying, and a big boy trying to do the best he could, taking us out for Chicago-style pizza.

A smoky bar, vividly blue, a blue I can still imagine to this day. Me asking, one time, why all the men in their beer bellies were saying words I didn't know at the TV.

The big boy, Richie, sat me on his lap. "They like looking at games, Cassie. The team that they want to do well isn't doing well, and that makes them sad. But for years and years, they keep waiting. They keep hoping, and maybe someday they'll win."

The last time I saw the blue room was from the outside. Richie was holding a baby. "André," he said to my parents. "Yeah, I'm not going in there anymore. Clean for the kid, y'know?"

I've never been back to Chicago since.

"Well?" I asked. "How is it?"

She smiled. "Really good. Can I have some more?"

"Of course!" I shoveled my slice onto her plate and took another. "Dip it into this sauce if you want."

We ate immaturely, like kids, finishing the pizza but still not full by 1:00. Halfway there.

If I was to discover who they really were, I'd have to start with what I knew. "So, Madra, were you named after the Yeerk moon?" I asked conversationally, stacking the pizza box in a recycling pile.

She looked puzzled. "The what?"

"Hold on, I know this." Darwin looked up to the ceiling. "One of the moons of the Yeerk homeworld."

"I don't think so."

"How about you, Darwin? I've never heard of that as a first name."

"I dunno. Miriam says Charles."

"Who's Miriam?"

"Mom o'the month." He seemed to speak all in one syllable.

"She is _not_," Madra retorted. "She's our foster mom. For _six_ months."

"Do you have a foster dad?" Simple get-to-know-you questions. Fifty-eight minutes.

"Nope. Not now, anyhow."

"Nobody would be stupid enough to marry Miriam," Darwin muttered.

"Have you always lived in California?"

"Yep," Madra smiled.

The impromptu interview was going nowhere. "So, why do you think I can help you?"

"Because if anyone knows where the other Animorphs are-it's months, now-you do," Darwin replied.

I feigned ignorance. "And why do you think that I know?"

"We're not sure," Madra replied, "but we really don't have any other option."

"Aximili's disappearance," I slowly chose my words, "was public news. Officer Menderash knows more about it than me."

"Officer Menderash," Darwin smirked, "was last seen the day before Jake and the others disappeared."

"You _have_ done your homework."

"So you do know."

"I've changed my mind about several things since we last spoke. But I still think the two of you deserve to be kept safe."

"Yeah, well, I could have used you five years ago."

Abruptly, I remembered one of our less-famous missions. "Have I seen you before?"

He looked at me critically. "When would we have-oh. Yes, you have."

Madra whirled between the two of us. "What?"

"The Animorphs attacked the Yeerk Pool once when I was infested," Darwin said tersely.

While accurate, that synopsis was considerably lacking in detail. Marco had received a phone call from the Yeerk controlling his mother, inviting us to attack and discredit Visser Three, hopefully proving to the Yeerk leaders that his plan for total war was far inferior to her more subtle approach. Any free pass into the Yeerk Pool that would hurt the Empire's plans was a positive. The Vissers' rivalry had been helpful to us on more than one occasion.

When we'd arrived, Visser One had been aiming a gun at a tiny human boy. When we got the chance to speak with Eva alone, she had revealed that her Yeerk had had children by a former host.

I began to count on my fingers, slowly: I had to estimate the age of the Controller I'd seen so long ago, then guess how long ago it was…I noticed Darwin staring coldly at me, and Madra still confused.

"Who are you?" I finally asked. "And what does your sister know?"

"Second question first," he responded. "Very little."

"Hey!" she retorted.

"You haven't gone through what I have, and I'd kind of like to keep it that way." While they were twins (their resemblance was clear looking at them), he had been forced into (by his own mind at least) the role of protective big brother.

"If we're going to pull this off, we're both going to go through a whole lot of stuff," she fired back.

"Cassie asked me the question, which means _she_ wants to know the truth. She doesn't care what you know, only whether or not you know it."

"If she wants to know some _big secret_," Madra's voice sounded dubious as to whether there even was such a thing,"it means she's with us, and we're going ahead."

I was stunned. The two of them had completely taken over the conversation, and most of their guesses about me had been correct.

"Most of what you need to know," Darwin swiveled to look at me, "you've already guessed."

"And Madra deserves to know more than me."

"Either there's a really big _Kick Me _sign on my butt," Madra said, less pleasantly than normal, "or something equally funny to those people in on the joke, and not me."

"It's not funny, Madra," Darwin said gently, "to any of us."

"Neither," I tried to remind them, "is the war you're trying to drag yourselves into."

"Tell us what you know, and I'll tell you what I know." The ultimatum was cast. At my glance, he added, "Both of you."

I could have justified it by saying that Madra's right to know her heritage was more important than my right to keep privy knowledge a secret. But at the time, no such thing crossed my mind. "Okay," I heard myself say. "It's a deal."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

"We're Visser One's kids."

Darwin spoke matter-of-factly. I remained calm, suspicions confirmed. Madra had an odd look on her face, as if Darwin had just told her a patent absurdity.

"No we're not."

"Yes, we are. By a former host."

She looked a little more willing to believe him, but still dubious. "But why would he want to infest you?"

"He who?"

"Visser One."

Seeing the looks of utter incomprehension on both their faces, as if neither was able to understand a single word the other said, I interrupted. "There was a different Visser One before the Andalite-Controller."

"Oh!" Madra remembered. "Marco's mother!"

"That was her host, yeah."

"So we're practically brothers and sister, then," Darwin grinned. "Maybe now you can take that poster down from your wall."

Madra scowled.

"So, there you go. Your turn."

"Wait a minute!" Madra interrupted. "You still haven't said why Visser Whoever wanted you infested."

"Wanted to see if Visser One still loved me."

Madra's face returned to its stupor.

"The Vissers never got along," I hastily tried to summarized. "It's hard to explain."

"Any more distractions?" Darwin leered. "Or can Cassie fulfill her part of the bargain?"

"Go ahead." Madra looked at me, not making eye contact with Darwin.

"Jake, Marco, and Tobias, along with some people I don't know, went off to search for Ax."

"That's better." Darwin made me feel like I was being tested. "Where?"

"Probably where he was seen last."

"Kelbrid space, then. And what did they go off in?"

"A spaceship, I assume?"

"How'd they get it?"

"I don't know."

"Couldn't they just borrow one?" Madra asked. "I mean, who would say no to the Animorphs?"

"Nobody," Darwin replied. "But they'd have to follow _procedure_. And as soon as word got out that they were planning some rescue mission, it would be front page news. Even when the media moved on to the next story, your friends would still never get off the ground."

I was struck by his accurate description of society.

"But," he added, much more brightly, "if _they_ can acquire a spaceship…covertly…so can you."

"What's covertly?" asked Madra, ingenuously.

"We're going to steal it," he bluntly replied. "With Cassie's help."

I held up my hand warningly. "Oh no. I never said anything about helping you break the law."

"But you're going to." He shrugged as if it was an already-established fact.

"No," I said. "I'm not."

Madra gave Darwin a shrewd glance. "You were saying that Marco and the others had to steal a ship because it would take too long if they tried to get it the normal way?"

"Yep," he nodded.

"Well, we're not famous. So can't we get it the normal way?"

Darwin sighed. "No, because that would involve having lots and lots of money."

"But she does…Maybe she could buy it, loan it to us, then when we came back, we'd give it back, and she could sell it again!"

Darwin gave Madra a look that mixed pity and fear, then turned to me. "Listen, Cassie, we didn't think this through well enough. Could we talk more later?"

"Of course. You know how to call me."

"Okay."

For several moments we stood awkwardly; then Darwin finally blurted, "Look, I need to explain this to Madra…privately."

"Okay, sorry. Just let me call a cab."

Fortunately for all of us, I remembered the number of the service that had gotten me there. We still had to endure an awkward wait while it rushed over, but some of the tension had faded by the time it got there.

"Feel free to call me any time," I waved as I climbed into the taxi. Though no tinted-window limousine, it nonetheless seemed to divide us distinctly. I couldn't bring myself to make eye contact as it drove away.

Darwin knew how probable it was that they would not come back. _I_ didn't know what his motivation was in the first place. If I strained, I could imagine Madra's enthusiasm to save the universe, though not understand it.

But I couldn't come up with anything else to think about on the drive back, so I tried to rationalize what could possibly be in it for him. The desire to protect Madra, perhaps? He didn't seem to have anything else to lose…

I tipped the driver generously when we arrived in the apartment. Somehow, I had gotten mud on my shoes in that pristine suburban atmosphere, but it had dried to dirt that I could knock off against the curb.

I trouped up to my apartment to find Ronnie. Accusatory from the get-go, he raged, "Where were you?"

"Out," I replied, my eyebrows unintentionally raising.

"I figured that. You should at least get a cell phone, that way I know where you are."

I ignored his suggestion. "Did you find the Controllers' names?"

"Oh, no," he said, a little downcast. "Toby didn't have them. But," he brightened, "she said that she'd look into it."

"What's left for me?" I asked quietly.

"What?"

"This project's been taken out of my hands. It was my…No, you're right." Conformity outstripped my apologetic mindset. "Go ahead."

He nodded. "Are you okay?"

I shrugged. "Yeah. Sure. Fine."

"Don't _do_ that again, okay? You scared me."

"Ronnie," I smiled faintly, "I can fend for myself pretty well."

He laughed. "How easily I forget."

He wasn't lying. Ronnie was one of very few people with whom I could truly feel myself. I had no real equals on the planet, everyone who had gone through the war with me being gone, but he didn't hero-worship me like most other people did. He knew me for what I was, flaws and all.

There were few other people who could make that claim. My family, certainly-well, my parents at least. Illim and Tidwell, perhaps? The harder I thought, the worse I felt as I realized how painfully low the number was. Toby and Jara, if they counted.

And yet, sometimes all it took was immaturity. The simplistic attitude of children who thought they could do anything was so much of a change for me that it might have been for the better.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

And then there was Melissa.

For two girls who had been classmates not so long ago, connected by a mutual friend, our lives had appeared to take strikingly different paths. She was anonymous, untraceable, disclaiming her part in the war. I was a public hero, accessible to a pair of kids too naïve to know what they couldn't do. If it hadn't been for Ronnie, they would have been able to talk to me even more quickly.

And yet, we were similar by virtue of being alone. Her closest companion, I worried, was an animal. All right, so my situation wasn't that dire. For all his faults, I still considered Ronnie a fundamentally good man.

But that evidently wasn't enough. There were billions of good people, I believed: human, Andalite, and Yeerk. I had fought for their survival, but they couldn't repay me through empathy.

Perhaps I wasn't "good". I'd seen despicable acts, and committed many more. I remained objectively aware of the atrocities: if I truly was to defeat the Yeerks without becoming them, I had to be accountable. If Melissa could retreat to save her virtue, like Guinevere into a nunnery, all the better for her.

That was the other danger of helping the twins. Not only were they putting their lives in danger, but also their hearts. Darwin should have been aware of that, though I doubted he believed he had anything left to lose.

Could I let Madra know that? It felt as if telling her how deeply I had been hurt would only expose her more to harsh reality. The alternative was to leave her alone for her own good, strangling her within her chrysalis. Exactly what Jake had done to me.

In order to talk to her without going back over to their house, however, they had to initiate contact. It took several days before Darwin did, calling me in the late evening. "Hi?"

"Hi-Darwin?"

"Yeah."

"Thanks for calling, I was hoping I'd get a chance to chat with you."

"You're welcome."

"So."

"So what?" I heard my voice and inwardly laughed. "Um, not like the phrase."

"Madra doesn't…get it."

"Yeah," I agreed, almost apologetically. "I noticed." When he didn't answer, I inferred I was supposed to go on, so I asked, "What do _you_ want?"

"What do I want? I want to live a normal life and not have to think about Yeerks or missing heroes."

"I can't help you, then."

"Yeah, I know. So time to go to my second choice."

"What's that?"

"I don't know. Look, I'm just a kid. I know I don't belong out in space, I'd get killed."

"Why don't you tell Madra this?"

"She…I dunno. She wouldn't get it."

"I can tell you really care about her."

"Yeah…I guess," he muttered, uncomfortable.

"It's important to you to keep her safe?"

"Yeah."

"I'm not going to help you get a spaceship," I declared. "Is she just giving you a hard time?"

"Well, no, it's a big deal to her, and…" I waited, letting him figure out what he wanted to say. "I don't know. I mean, the more I thought about it, the more I figured we…Life's boring, y'know? I hated being a Controller. Hated it, it was so bad. But now I don't know what else I have to do."

"How old are you, Darwin?"

"Thirteen. You already asked me."

"Right. You have a big life ahead of you. I know you can do things we've never dreamed of, yet."

"So do you."

"Excuse me?"

"You're not _that_ much older than me. Are you still so bored with life that you can go driving off to nowhere just 'cuz some random kids call you up?"

My mind seemed to switch off.

"Yeah. So, don't tell me what to do."

"I'm confused," I admitted. "I want to help you, but I don't know what you want."

"Neither do I. But honestly, can half the Animorphs disappear and nobody cares? I mean, you guys kinda saved the world."

"That's one way to put it."

"What's such a big deal that not even the military does something? Andalites and humans make a pretty good team-if there's something out there they don't want us to know about, it's gotta be something big."

"I'm not too sure what "it" is."

"_Too _sure? Do you have a guess?"

"Only that Jake didn't want me to have to face it."

"That doesn't help us any."

"What do you mean by "us"?"

"I mean…I don't know what I mean."

"Then why don't you wait to find out? You have plenty of time."

"I'll wait. And then I still won't know. And I'll keep waiting. And less and less people will know what I went through, and I won't know then either."

"You could teach them."

"Teach them? I don't want anybody to have to go through that."

I knew that by goading him I was risking a lot, but I felt it was worth it. "What about the Yeerk that infested you?" I challenged. "Would you want to get revenge on him? Or her? Do _they _deserve that?"

"Why are you asking me?" he replied shrewdly.

"I just want to figure out more about who you are."

"Well, when you do, could you let me know?"

"Of course," I replied without thinking, then realized he must have expected a sarcastic retort. "No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way. I've just got too much on my mind."

"Oh? Like what?"

"Well," I replied cagily, trying to give him some of the truth he deserved while avoiding getting into topics I barely understood myself, "I'm trying to design-er, work with a team that's designing-a memorial for the war."

"Cool," he replied, sounding genuinely interested. "Is it gonna be in Washington?"

"I don't think so…To be honest, I guess I don't have a clue. I always assumed it would be here."

"Hmm. Better figure that out, huh?" He laughed, but it wasn't mocking: more of a friendly tease.

"Yeah, I guess. Good idea."

"Thanks," he said, and I could hear the tinges of pride over the phone. Perhaps some of the first: infestation aside, he'd bounced between foster homes aimlessly, it seemed. Sometimes shocking an "adult" into reality was an achievement, maybe a great one. It didn't matter, as long as he could have dreams that kept him and Madra on the ground.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

I hadn't remembered to get their phone number, leaving contact once again on their terms. But how could I have? Once the conversation started, it moved quickly-not in terms of the speed of our speech, but in the distance covered. I had grown almost lazy lost in my nostalgia. Darwin moved in real time, and he itched to go faster.

But they were quickly cast aside again by yet another sudden, comparatively rapid, event. I had let Ronnie talk me into going out for supper, which should have been my first warning. As we were waiting for our meals (steak and enchiladas, respectively), he casually said, "So, I've been thinking about filing a blue form."

I blinked. For Yeerks and Taxxons, filling out the "navy form" was a matter of formality. Andalites' "sky form" was a military secret. But for humans, the "blue form" was the first step in a convoluted bureaucracy. "Why?"

"Well, I've been spending a lot of time with the Hork-Bajir lately, and it's important to me to better understand their world. I think the best way to do that would be to experience it as they do."

"You bring up a good point," I admitted. "I wonder if they have the right to apply for morphing power. Do you know?"

"I don't think they do. It could be a liability with some of the…you know…less…" Wincing, he attempted to classify a sizable proportion of the species without insulting them.

"Less able to control their morphs, maybe?"

"Yeah," he answered, relieved. "I'm sure Toby would be fine with it, if she wanted."

"Do you think she does?"

"How should I know?" he asked defensively.

"Relax. I just know you've been spending a lot of time in the colony."

Somewhat placated, he answered. "I'm not sure that's what she'd want, but I can ask her."

"All right. I guess I'd rather see her than you have the power-no offense."

"Why?" He was clearly affronted.

"Well, poor choice of words on my end: I'd rather see her _try_. If she applies, I'm not sure how she would, but nobody would turn her down. She's a seer, a leader, and there's not a precedent to deny it. You, on the other hand," I sighed, "I don't want anybody to think anything bad about you."

He laughed. "That makes two of us."

"Do you know how many people fill out those forms? And how few get through? People who try to apply for morphing power are seen as…crazies. Trying to get away from it all."

He exhaled slowly. "I know."

I eyed him gently, hoping against hope that the food would come and distract us. But there was no preferential treatment that night, so I simply sat quietly.

After a while, he spoke with less composure than I was used to. He was traditionally calm and unperturbed, but in contrast, made no effort to hide his desire. "How much do you know about the process?"

"Getting access? Three independent commissions have to read your application, and then, if possible, you answer questions in front of a committee."

"I couldn't get an exemption, could I?"

"No: you'd have to be too sick or insane to get there." I smiled, almost flirtatiously. "Wouldn't want that."

He seemed taken slightly aback, but recovered quickly. "Oh! No, no, not at all."

"It's different if you want to become a _nothlit_, I think, but I assume you don't?" Even the possibility scared me.

"Nope. Just wanna get into the Hork-Bajir, uh, mindset."

"It hasn't been all that helpful for me-" Realizing what I had said, I laughed instinctively. "Since I've started my job with the Hork-Bajir."

"When was the last time you morphed?"

I opened my mouth to reply, and let it hang open after I realized I had nothing to say.

"I mean, if I had a bird morph, we could fly up to the colony together."

I closed my mouth and eyes as I attempted to visualize the scene. Certainly, flying up to the colony felt more comfortable than driving, or at least more "natural". I'd always driven our car, but assumed Ronnie knew the way well enough. A quick thought told me he had to, having been there multiple times alone.

A wave of emotion swept through me, a cross between reality and relief. For so long it had been our secret, but of course there were innumerable people more competent to care for the species than me. And almost-as-innumerable people that the authorities could trust with the morphing power.

"If you want to apply, you can go ahead. I don't want to stop you or anything, just not to send you on a wild goose chase either."

He smiled endearingly. "I appreciate your help. Anything you can do would be wonderful."

I nodded absentmindedly, not quite sure what he meant.

The food came and we ate quickly: I was hungrier than I thought. As I finished, I asked conversationally, "Whose DNA would you want? Have you discussed this with any of the Hork-Bajir themselves?"

"Bwuh?" Bits of meat flew everywhere: I tried not to wince. "No, I haven't-no use confusing them if things don't work out."

I nodded. "Good idea. What about a Frolis maneuver?"

"A what?"

Sometimes he really seemed out of it-but maybe I was being too hard on him. He was a gentle man, able to bond with the Hork-Bajir. No one asked him to know any technical terms. "When you combine DNA from different individuals."

He narrowed his eyebrows. "So different Hork-Bajir?"

"Exactly."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

"Don't get your hopes up," I rushed to add. "But I think going with a Frolis might help your case somewhat. I'm sure it would be awkward for the Hork-Bajir to interact with an exact duplicate of one of their colony."

"Absolutely," he soberly acknowledged. "That wouldn't really be fair to him, either."

"Him who?"

"Whoever I morph."

"Aha."

The conversation would leap around from time to time, as he lurched from one topic to the next and I was caught off-guard. He refused to let me pay for my meal, and I didn't complain. We departed placidly, despite the hum in the back of my head.

What did he want?


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

Work was something for me to focus on, going on normally amid the increasing demands. Without having consciously realized it, my role in the colony was changing. Instead of helping the Hork-Bajir solve their daily dilemmas, I taught them how to do it themselves-and undermined my future employment possibilities.

Tay Krogu, a quiet girl with large eyes, stared at me as I demonstrated once again how to treat a simple wound. Several days previously, her uncle Arsh Spitog had been scratched across the face by a tree branch.

"Be careful, don't bring your spikes too close." I awkwardly guided her giant hand. "Right there."

"Why in the air?"

"What?" I asked, trying to keep my voice level. Some of the questions took me two or three times to understand."

"Why cloth go in air?" she repeated, clearly as frustrated with my unintelligence as I was with hers.

I tried to look at it from her perspective. I'd helped her wet a rag and maneuver it to where Arsh's injury had been-no use trying to generalize yet-or had I?

"No, the cloth isn't going to go in the air," I tried to explain. "It goes where the hurt is."

"But no hurt here."

That time I guessed what she meant comparatively quickly. "Nope, not now. But it goes where it would be if there would be a, uh, hurt."

She gave me an almost pitying look. I made a mental note to avoid the use of the subjunctive when possible. "Where was Arsh hurt?"

"By short tree, branches go out far." She pointed to an outcrop where the tree in question was still growing infinitesimally.

"All right, yeah. Which part of him got hurt?"

"Face, here." She gently indicated the corresponding part on her own face.

"Okay. So, can you put the cloth there?"

"Why?"

"To practice for next time."

"Next maybe foot or hand."

She'd got me there.

"You're right," I replied patiently. "You can practice on all of them. Can you put it higher? Lower?"

She gradually raised her arm upward, then slowly brought it down, tracing a semicircle in front of her. She mimicked what I wanted her to do exactly, but I couldn't see her really understand what she was doing: not enough, as I eventually hoped, to teach others.

"Now, what if I was hurt right here?" I pointed to the back of my other hand. As I did so, I realized I hadn't bothered to explain a hierarchy of injury: she might waste time trying to use that method on something beyond her capacity.

"I put cloth there." And so she did, pressing my hand down underneath the weight of the water-soaked rag.

"Yeah!" I winced instinctively. "Um, yeah, that's right…can you let me out, now?" I pulled my hand free and shook it until it was reasonably dry. The droplets flickered off, but didn't form any bright sparks against the sun's glare-only frigid streams across my hand, and specks of mud upon the ground.

What if she had a Hork-Bajir to practice on?

"Tay," I said quietly, "you know that sometimes I turn into other…people? And animals?"

She nodded enthusiastically. "Help fight Yeerks. Like friend Tobias. Ket and Toby tell story all time."

I smiled. "I'm going to become a Hork-Bajir right now. Then I'll get a scratch-just a little one-and you can help me. Okay?"

She was looking in my direction, anyhow. Slowly, I drew on the Hork-Bajir DNA within me. Lurching as I grew, I saw horror on Tay's face.

"Don't werlig," I tried to say as my mouth became a beak and the linguistic-train-junction part of the Hork-Bajir brain kicked in. Summoning my _estreen_ faculties, I completed the morph as smoothly as I could. "It's still me, Cassie."

I tried to let the alien mind take over to keep my balance, and it turned out to be a boon as I attempted to communicate with her as well. While she was initially put off when I poked my horn in the tree, she quickly developed (comparative) expertise, and clearly took pride in doing so.

I admitted to myself that I would never have been able to make anywhere near as much headway without having morphed. As I'd anticipated, there was a distinct difference between various injuries: Arsh's seemed gruesome to us humans, but to a Hork-Bajir it was negligible, part of the reason why Tay had been so baffled. Perhaps Ronnie simply understood the potential for learning from within the Hork-Bajir body.

"Jara?" a gravelly voice called. "Jara Hamee?"

My head instinctively pivoted. Jara had been dead for three years.

"Jara! I Esh Bonra. We fight Yeerk!"

Oh. _I_ was Jara.

"Hi, Esh." I raced to come up with the best explanation.

"How you come back?"

"Don't know."

"Ket! Ket Halpak!" he roared. "Come see Jara come back!"

Wincing, I beamed a thought to the only person that could help. ((Toby? It's me, Cassie, in morph. Can you head your mom off before she comes?)) There was no way for her to respond, of course. I wasn't sure whether she'd even heard Esh, so I clarified. ((One of your dad's friends saw me and is calling your mom over.))

"This Cassie," Tay tried to explain.

"No, Cassie is human. I know Jara."

I had no good options: demorph and confuse Esh even more, or stay in morph and shock Ket. It felt awful to care more for her opinions just because I knew her better, but I wasn't sure what my choices were. I demorphed as surreptitiously as I could, which was not at all. At least he was silenced when I stood in front of him, human once more.

"It's me, Cassie," I said lamely.

"You become animals sometimes? Fight Yeerks too?"

"That's right."

"Jara is no animal. Jara is person."

I chose my words carefully-hadn't humans been torn apart by a similar debate? "That's right. I can become other people, too."

"Is Andalite power," Tay explained.

"Become Jara again? Ket want to see you, I know."

"It's not really Jara. It's still just me," I offered as pathetic consolation.

"But you _were_ Jara."

"When I become Jara, I only look like him. You could become Jara better than me-you remember him, you were his friend. Can you think about what Jara used to be like?"

"Strong, good friend. Always want freedom for everyone."

I nodded. "That's right. When you miss him, try and remember what he believed in-that's the best way to help him come back." My aphorisms were getting more pathetic with every word. "I'll see you later, okay?"

I headed for my car, desperate to get out of the situation. Tay waved her goodbye and thanked me for the lesson; I told her she was welcome in a more glum tone than she deserved. The valley flickered out of view as I made my way back into the realer world, or so I thought of it.

The morphing power Ronnie coveted for whatever reason was more complicated than I could have imagined. It was more than our DNA that made us who we were, to be sure, but to Esh, it was literally the power of life and death.

And all I was was a shadow of an inaccessible past.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

I lay half asleep that night, with a storm raging outside. Slowly, a far too modern noise mingled with the ancient thunder. I had had to be "on call" at any hour during the war, but I couldn't think of anyone who would be calling me so late: I hadn't talked with my parents for a long time, Washington was three time zones to the east, and Ronnie was next door.

There weren't any time zones in space.

I stumbled out of bed and lurched for the phone. "Hello?"

"Hello? Is this Cassie? I can't hear you."

In the darkness, I fumbled with the phone and turned the mouth and ear ends to their appropriate locations. "What about now?"

"That's better."

"Why are you calling so late?"

Darwin's voice came in. "It was the only time we could trust we'd actually get you. Keep quiet, Madra, Miriam will hear you."

"Trust you'd actually-what do you mean?"

"The last couple times it's been some guy saying not to bother you," Madra whispered.

"Which would be stupid if we didn't already know you lived here, because it lets us know that you do," Darwin remarked.

My tired brain worked to catch up with them. "Who? What did he say?"

"He said to stop calling and leave you alone."

For one long instant my mind was blank. Everything I understood about people no longer made sense. "Ronnie?" I whispered more hoarsely than I expected, as if I'd suddenly lost my voice.

"He didn't stay on long enough to give a name."

"All right. Well, I apologize, I hadn't been aware that was going on. I'll call you back sometime later-"

"No!" Madra interrupted. "Miriam doesn't know we're talking to you."

I laughed. "I think she might have noticed when I, oh, came into her house."

"She wasn't even there, she was out volunteering," Darwin explained. "We're old enough-well-I can look after myself."

"So can I!" Madra protested.

"I still don't have your phone number," I gently reminded them while noting their argument: it seemed to be a continuation of a much longer-running dispute.

Darwin gave it to me. "We'll call you, though. We don't mind getting sworn at."

"He's _sworn_ at you?"

"Not _too_ badly." He rattled off a couple words: while they were indeed not too foul, it was still a jolt to hear them from a thirteen-year-old as flippantly as he spoke.

But I could almost hear Rachel, fending off Hork-Bajir for the first time, yelling her makeshift war cries to the night.

"Mostly when Madra_hit the redial button_," he hissed.

"Calm down. I'll call you back in a couple days."

I hung up and stood gripping the phone, as if to steady myself, then calmly knocked on the door to Ronnie's room.

He groggily came to the door. "Hey. Still awake?"

I nodded in the semidarkness. "Yeah. I didn't wake you, did I?"

"Oh, no. What's up?"

"Have you been getting any phone calls? Or taking any for me?"

"Sometimes," he nonchalantly replied.

"How about some kids? Teenagers, maybe?"

"Oh, yeah." He narrowed his eyes. "They won't shut up. Did they call you this late?"

"Yeah," I said casually, trying to think about what to say. "Like you said, they don't shut up."

"I keep trying to get them to leave you alone, but they don't get the message. Sorry."

"Nothing to apologize for." I immediately abandoned my attempt to downplay the situation. "To me, anyhow."

"What, I should call them back and say I'm sorry?"

"Wouldn't hurt."

"Aren't you annoyed with them?"

"Not really." Baffled by? Worried for? Inexplicably fond of? I felt a lot of things towards the twins, but annoyance wasn't one of them.

It was too dark to see frustration growing on his face. "Cass, you can't just let random kids walk all over you. How do you know these brats?"

"One of them's a former Controller."

"There are counselors and stuff for them. They don't deserve to waste your time. _You_ don't deserve to have them waste your time."

"My fate's been out of my control for a while," I replied bluntly.

"You're an amazing woman, Cassie, you can do whatever you want, and I just don't understand why you put up with that kind of crap."

"It's not crap," I retorted fervently. "Try talking to them before you write them off, will you?"

"I _have_ talked to them, trying to let you spend your time in peace!"

"I spend all my time in peace, it's getting a little boring!" As soon as the words left my mouth I took a step back, repulsed. "No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that."

"Not good enough for you anymore?"

"No, I-"

My mouth froze. Cliché sentiment was impossible to find. Ronnie half-loomed in the doorway-the other half was almost pitiful.

"You what?" He spoke beyond emotion, fueled by a dark strength.

"I…"

Ronnie, I thought, had filled the void that Jake left in my life, a seamless replacement. But stating that, or anything close, was impossible.

"What?"

"I'm just nineteen, okay? I don't know where my life's going yet," I blurted.

"Everything I've done for you? None of that matters?"

"What have you done for me?"

"I've rented these apartments, I've-"

"I can do that myself."

"You want to try?"

"No, I want you to…" Again I was trapped: there was nothing I truly desired from him, though I barely knew that, but I wanted him to remain calm. "Go back to bed, okay? We'll talk this over in the morning."

"You want me to go? Yeah, that's what I thought." He slammed the door shut.

I tried to count to sixty, gave up at fifty-four, and knocked on the connecting door. "Ronnie?"

No answer.

I walked into the hall, then knocked on the main door. "I'm sorry."

Silence.

I called him, figuring there was at least a chance he'd think it might be someone else, but he was wise to that too.

So I went back to bed. The storm was already subsiding, a muddy ground its only legacy, but sleep was a long time coming.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

At least once I did get to sleep I stayed there, waking up late but refreshed. As I lazily stretched, the events of the previous night came slowly back to me.

After slowly working up the energy, I wandered over to the connecting door and gave it a couple of dull knocks.

There was no reply. I tested the knob without expecting it to be open, but it was, and I almost tripped inside.

Ronnie's bed was made, which I'd never seen. The room was less cluttered than usual, and its emptiness was almost tangible.

I walked backwards, pushing the door back to its normal position without closing it, then flopped on my bed.

It was one of the advantages of being famous and barely having to work that I could set my own schedule, but that also meant I was out of sync with the rest of the world. Still moping and second-guessing my outburst of the night before, I made the mistake of trying to call the twins.

"Hullo," a warm voice answered. "Who's this?"

"Oh, Miriam? Sorry, uh, this probably isn't a good time."

She laughed: a jolly, infectious noise. "Why'd you call, then?"

"Uh, forgot. I have something to do." I hung up the phone before she could reply, unsure if she even knew who had called.

Of course, they'd be in school. I was out of touch with that generation. At least I'd finally grown up.

I went to the office, spending hours staring at different memorial designs until my eyes glazed over. "Does any of this matter?" I asked the intern finally, out of frustration.

"Whaddaya mean?" he retorted. The words seemed to rapidly tumble out of his mouth, rushing by.

"Parents drag kids to memorials all the time. Does it make a difference? Or do they still grow up and kill each other?"

He shrugged-he was_older_ than me. "What was the last war we had here on earth?"

"Well, there was that, uh, that Middle East thing."

He laughed. "It's_always_ a Middle East thing. What about when the Andalites set up their consulate in Egypt?"

"There was some big controversy, the President wanted an embassy with the U. S. and the Andalites said they only recognized species, not subgroupings."

"Precisely. The wars on Earth are over, I'll bet you next semester's tuition."

"So we traded one war for another." And had we done it again?

"So people can, actually, stop fighting once in a while."

I shook my head.

Where _were _they? Who were they fighting? The question nagged me, eating at the back of my mind throughout the afternoon. But there was no way Darwin or Madra could know…

I didn't try getting into Ronnie's apartment: I wasn't afraid to fail, but rather succeed.

I realized that I had no idea of whether I'd get Miriam if I called again. I had told them "a couple days" before I called back, but what was I waiting for?

I moved my finger to hit the first digit, but realized I could just redial. I didn't have that many people to call.

So I redialed, and Madra answered. "Hi!"

"Hello, this is Cassie."

"Hold on a sec."

She put the phone down and I could hear the loud noise of a kitchen at work and footsteps throughout the house. "Hello?" Darwin's voice came in.

"Hi."

"Just a sec, Madra's hanging up the other phone."

The noise was a little more muffled until a _click_ shut it off. Several moments later, Madra finally said, "Okay."

"What was that all about?" I teased.

"She had to go tell me to pick up the other phone, go hang up the old one, and come back," Darwin explained.

"I've been hanging out by the phone all afternoon," she beamed. "Darwin thought you wouldn't call for a couple days."

"So what do you have to tell me?" I asked.

I could almost hear Darwin smirk. "I got in contact with this guy I know. He told me that all of the Yeerk ships are linked to a universal network."

"All right." I tried to keep my voice light: it was difficult to establish facial expressions over the phone. "Next time I travel in a Bug fighter, I'll surf the web and spy on a Blade ship halfway across the galaxy."

"You don't get it?" he hissed. "If your friends in a Yeerk ship, they can be found in another Yeerk ship. If nobody's doing it, that means whatever's out there is too dangerous for even a fleet."

"Which means you have less than zero reason to be out there, and why would they be in a Yeerk ship?"

"If they took an Andalite ship, everybody would want to come. And no Andalite ships disappeared around the time your friends did."

Sweat formed between my hands and the phone. "A Yeerk ship did?"

"Oh yeah."

"Honestly, anybody could have figured this out," Madra said. "But we're the ones who did."

"If a fleet of Yeerk ships couldn't handle the Kelbrid or whatever," I challenged, "what possible reason do you two have-"

"But that's the point, they can't! Look, could all the Earth military have fought off the Yeerk invasion?"

"...No," I said, after a pause to make sure I wasn't stepping into some monstrous trap.

"But you guys could."

"We didn't fight them _off_."

"The point is, sometimes a couple kids can do more than a big army."

"You're not getting the morphing power."

"I'm not asking for it."

"And we didn't do more than a big army, we needed to call on the military at the end."

"Didn't help, though." Darwin wrested the phone from Madra.

"What do you want?"

He laughed. "That's better. Come on, you have to have connections. A dinky little spaceship is all."

It was my turn to laugh. "A dinky little spaceship? They cost a whole lot of money."

"You have connections."

"You're just as idealistic as your sister," I teased.

"What's that?"

"In this case," I reminded myself I was dealing with thirteen-year-olds, "it means you think I can solve anything."

"No we don't. We plan to."

I figured he was teasing. "How do you plan on getting a spaceship?"

"We're still working on it."

"Then what do you need me for?"

"You'd make things a lot easier."

"You said before that Jake and the others couldn't get a ship just by asking. What makes me any different?"

Silence for a while. "We'll get back to you on that," Darwin said finally, hanging up.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

In spite of myself, I found myself wishing they'd call back. Even being able to test my opinions against theirs was a ground for fertile thought.

And I did want to change. Not to change my positions on everything, but to develop and grow. Being stuck the same way for the next several decades seemed infinitely boring.

I noticed the irony, of course-though I was no longer part of an elite monopoly on the morphing power, I was still one of a privileged few. I found myself taking leisure jaunts more and more often: soaring over the ocean or romping through the woods. My responsibilities seemed more and more meaningless: I'd compare different designs for the memorials, sketched by people with actual skill.

"I like this one," I said, absentmindedly circling one of four rough drafts. Only I didn't pick up my pencil: I just kept going without thinking, like a comet whipped around a star. "Oh!" The ovals had flattened out, eventually smudging the design in question. "Sorry, did I mess it up!"

"Oh no…that's…fine." He was a young man, twenty-something, with the quiet gray eyes of an artist and the uncombed brown hair of a maverick.

Wait, young? He was older than me!

"Are you okay?" I asked, tilting my head to the side. He seemed unsettled. Perhaps his disappointment was masked from the callous, but not me. Whatever I had gone through, I could still feel. That had to count for something, didn't it?

"Yeah," he muttered, entirely unconvinced.

"I can erase the circles. If I messed it up-"

"No!" he retorted, too quickly and with too much passion to be lying. That was good, right? "It's fine."

"You just seem disappointed."

"No. It's not. I-" He shook his eyes, and they were tired and old. "Never mind."

"What is it?"

"I…" He grabbed the paper, turned, and headed off.

Clearly not something he wanted to discuss: I knew better than to push it. Instead, during a "coffee break" (I could have taken one any time I wanted), I wandered towards Justin, the intern. "What's with…Chad?"

"I think the design he wanted didn't go through."

"He had several designs, why didn't he pick one?"

"Wanted to see what the higher-ups thought."

"Oh." Irritated, convinced of something not quite right, I drummed my fingers against the water cooler. Coffee was the last thing I needed in a state like that. "Wait, he was running it by _me_."

"Yeah."

"Did I shoot down the one he wanted?"

"Um…yeah."

"Why did he go through me?" I asked, angry without knowing why. "I don't know anything about this kind of thing!"

"Keep your voice down," Justin laughed. "People respect you."

"But that's no reason I should be in charge of this. I…" _Shouldn't be working here_, I finished to myself.

"You should take a break," he said with concern.

I laughed. "This _is_ a break, isn't it?"

"Well, yeah," he smiled back, "But I mean, a break from the job."

"Nah, I like having something to do."

"But not this?"

"Well, no," I admitted, trying to keep a lighthearted expression. "I liked working with the Hork-Bajir, before I got assigned to this project."

He seemed genuinely surprised, as if I'd said something shocking. "Who assigned you to this?"

"Mr. Masson." I didn't see much of our quiet boss, but he was a nice enough guy.

"And you don't want to do it? So go back to the colony if that's what you want!"

"I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"I was assigned here." We were staring at each other completely blankly: both of us were speaking and hearing noise, but clearly neither of our messages made any sense to the other person.

"Yeah, but you're _Cassie_! _The_ Cassie. He can't tell you what to do."

"Yeah he can, actually."

"You sure don't have to listen to him."

"What else can I do?"

"Whatever you want."

"And what if everyone thought that way? Society would fall apart!"

"But _you_ don't have to."

"Why shouldn't I? I'm…just a kid, really." The words sounded hollow even as I said them, no matter how I desperately wanted them to be true.

He sighed pityingly. "Your loss."

I wanted to go right then, go to the colony and do simple work that didn't need any thinking. I knew I wouldn't forgive myself if I simply left, though, so I waited until a meaningless day of work was done. Then, at last, I went to the mountain hideaway.

"Hello," Ket greeted me warmly. "Toby here?"

"Are you asking me or telling me?" At her confused look, I quickly rephrased. "I don't see her."

"She go pick barkgrass. Give as present."

"Oh. That's nice."

"Yes."

"Is there anything I can do? I'd like to help out."

"Help Arsh. He make hole."

"A hole?" I repeated.

Sure enough, Arsh was happily digging a hole. "What's the hole for?" I asked good-naturedly.

"Put food in. Creatures no eat."

"You're keeping it safe from animals? That's a good idea. Can I help?"

"Yes."

I bent down and jumped into the hole. It was small on the Hork-Bajir scale, but the landing shocked me. The rough, muddy emptiness wouldn't stop birds or bugs from flying in and eating it. The dirt might spoil the food. And my gentle hands couldn't come close to matching Arsh's efforts, futile as they were.

Even if they could, even if there was a point, would I belong there? I wanted them to thrive, but they could not if I was doing their work for them. I wanted to work, but I didn't fit into the human or the Hork-Bajir worlds.

There were people, I knew, who wanted my help. Wanted me to do something. _I_ wanted to do something.

But why did the choice have to be so hard?

I went back to my apartment. It felt gaping, huge. There was too much space: I needed so little to get by. We humans had come a long way in the last decade, but inequity was still a fact of life.

Maybe it wasn't more space I needed, but someone else to fill it. I missed Ronnie. I missed his wild erratic moments and his tender sincerity. More than anything, I missed my friends.

I picked up the receiver and listened, trying to ascribe some rational melody to the incessant dial tone.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

"I'm just saying. Not that I'd do anything."

"We get that," Darwin droned. "What's the point?"

"Shouldn't I come too?"

"You don't want to come."

"I do," I smiled thinly, though they couldn't hear me over the phone. "I need something to do with my life."

They laughed. "So do we!"

We had both seen and lived horrors that were, in fact, possible to relate. It was us who were impossible to relate _to_. Normal humans seemed shallow strangers. "So what makes us different? Why couldn't I come?"

"You care about what happens to us."

"And if you don't, I'm not going to send you into space."

"I care about Madra-look, we've had this conversation before."

"Look, there were six of us, and we stayed on Earth."

"Not always," Madra piped up."

"There's still a world of difference. A galaxy of difference!"

"Do you believe in us?"

"What?"

"Do you think we can find them? Marco and Jake and the others anyhow? Then it won't be just us."

"They're out there to find Ax, not to babysit a couple of middle-schoolers!" Pent-up frustration burst.

"Now we're talking." I could almost hear Darwin's smirk. "So you think we can do it."

"I didn't say that."

"If we can find them, we can stay out of their business while they do their saving the world stuff."

"Then why bother going?"

"Maybe we can help," said Madra.

"Maybe I could help, too."

"You care about all of us," Darwin amended his previous statement. "Jake and Ax and Madra and me. That's good. But it doesn't help win the war."

"You need to care about something in order to fight. All of us did. Why are you going, if you don't care?"

"They saved the world," Madra said. "They deserve better than that."

"I'm talking to you, Darwin."

"To make sure Madra knows what she's doing, and it's something to do."

"But you don't really care about the Kelbrid or the Animorphs or whatever's up there?"

"Well…" He seemed to be stalling for time. "Madra's right, it isn't fair what happened to Ax."

"No. It isn't. It's also not fair that two kind, bright people should be stuck on their own without a family. It's not fair that a young boy should be infested by a parasite. You know better than to think life should be fair."

"Darn right I do. I'm just making something up so you'll believe me."

I'd found the weak link. Separated from his deep loyalty to protect his sister, Darwin had no personal inclination to go into space.

I'd need to talk to him alone. But could I trust him over the phone? Or would he let Madra listen in?

Carefully, I spoke. "How'd you like to come over to my apartment?"

I remembered to rent a cab that Saturday to pick them up. Madra bounced up the stairs; Darwin took them two at a time. When we arrived, their changing expressions reminded me just how barren it was. No place for thirteen-year-olds. Then again, was their foster home? Miriam seemed a kind and sincere woman, but more interested in caring for those a decade younger than the twins.

"Sorry there's not much to do," I said. "Madra, do you want to look for the game room? I think there's one upstairs somewhere. I've never used it, though, I'm no good at pool."

"Sure!" Her eyes brightened, and she took off.

"Now then," I addressed Darwin, after the door was closed tightly. "She's gone, so don't worry about her."

"I can't not worry about her. She's my sister, and she's too shallow to survive on her own. I don't want what happened to me to happen to her."

"I don't either. But the Yeerks aren't a threat anymore. The threat is out there in space. Why would you put her into danger?"

Indecision flickered across his face.

"Darwin, I think you're very intelligent. Don't tell anyone, but a lot smarter than your sister."

He leaped to her defense-"She's good at different stuff"-as I knew he would, but not before instinctively showing pride. Thirteen-year-old boys are much the same deep down.

"So let's talk about _you_. You don't want to go into space. She couldn't manage it without you. So don't go."

"But I do wanna go."

"Really?" I met his eyes. "You?"

"Who wouldn't wanna go into space?" He said it with more sincerity than I expected, but it was too evasive for me.

"_You_, Darwin?"

"Of course I wanna go into space! I wanna get off this stupid planet!"

"And fight a war and maybe die light-years away from home?"

"You think I have a home?" His words cut deep. "I've seen war. I know what it's like. Wouldn't the best fighters be people who wanted to end the war and come home?"

"Draftees? You just said you wanted to go."

"We balance each other out, Madra and I. Her dreams and my sanity."

"So you wouldn't be the best."

"Why didn't you go the first time?"

"What?"

"When Jake and them left. Why didn't you come if you're so eager now?"

"Didn't you just say the best would be people who didn't want to?"

"Why didn't you go back then?" he pressed.

"Jake didn't want me to."

"And you just let him tell you that?"

"Yeah."

"Well, how about this. Ax disappears and the world sits around. Jake and Marco and Tobias disappear and the world sits around. Why should Madra and I go? Because it was our idea."

"But you said-"

"Nobody likes killing other people." I was struck by _his_ idealism, for a change. "But nobody else cares enough to find them. We do."

He went on. "They're your friends. It's not about what's fair to you, is it? Because you care about them too."

"So why can't I go?"

"Our idea. You didn't question Jake before. Why would you question us now? You're part of the _world_, Cassie."

As I opened my mouth to say "What?", I understood. I was part of Ket and Toby, and Ronnie, wherever he was. Part of Melissa, Justin, and Chad. My parents-my whole family.

And they were part of me.

My career with the memorial group no longer existed. My career with the Hork-Bajir faded as they moved towards self-sufficiency. But it wasn't my age that gave me the power to try again somewhere else, and succeed. It was my ability to feel.

The door burst open. "Whew! Took me a while to remember the room number. The game room is _downstairs_, Cassie."

Of course it was. I had sent Madra on a wild goose chase to change Darwin's mind. Somewhere along the line it had gone wrong, though, and he was changing mine.

"They've got foosball, Darwin."

"Excellent." A broad, adolescent grin.

"Us two against you, Cassie?"

"Sure," I said dazedly, unsure what I was conceding.

"I'll just warn you though," he uncharacteristically boasted. "We're really good."

He wasn't kidding. Even if I had been able to focus, I was no match for Madra's flamboyant attack and Darwin's brutal defense. I managed two measly goals in the time it took them to score ten.

We trooped back up to the apartment. I booted up the computer and casually ran a search for Yeerk ships.

"What's that?" Madra inquired.

"Just lookin' around," I said evasively, clicking on the sixth hit.

"Auctioning off Bug fighters," Darwin read faster than I could, "and converting some Blade ships to scout forces. We want transports I think though. Mind if I type?"

"Um…"

I was no match for his speed, and within half an hour he had found four sites on which to register. "We should use your user name and password," he suggested.

I thought back to the conversation we had had. Who was he part of? Madra. And now me.

But I couldn't bind them to Earth.

Very deliberately, I copied down my username and password-"so I wouldn't forget it"-and put it somewhere memorable, like my wallet.

"We should go back to your place, I guess," I eventually said. Darwin beat Madra in pool as we waited for the taxi to arrive.

When we got there, I fumbled for cash. "How much do I owe you-oh! I guess you'll have to get me home." The abrupt change in topic was startling enough, and I dropped my wallet.

Coins spilled over the grass, and I gathered them up as quickly as I could. "That should be everything. Good to see you two."

I tried to keep a level face as the cab drove me home. I knew the two of them well enough to imagine the conversation that either already was or would soon be taking place. For when I had gathered up the coins, I had not picked up the note with the passwords-and my credit card.

Darwin would spot then first and patiently explain the significance. Madra would want to call me to bring them back, but Darwin would convince her of the opportunity they had. It wouldn't take much convincing.

Neither of them would realize I had done it on purpose.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

"Now concentrate on the dog. Imagine yourself turning into it."

If morphing wasn't so commonplace, the person I was addressing probably wouldn't have believed it would work. As it was, he had loudly, and expletively, announced his disapproval of the idea.

Slowly, his too-quickly graying hair brightened to a luxurious gold. His hands shriveled to paws and his legs dropped to the floor. He bounded mid-morph, and I dived out of the way.

"Yip! Yip! Yip!"

"Whoa, steady there, boy," I said instinctively, then snapped back to business. "Douglas? Can you hear me?"

"Yip! Yep?"

"Use thought-speak."

((What the? How do I do that?))

"You just did."

((Whoa! Can you hear me now?))

"Yes."

Douglas trotted around the small office, sniffing various items of furniture. ((Did you say there was a courtyard?))

"Yes. Would you like to go there?"

((Yeah.))

So we went to the courtyard. The building's high walls isolated it from the outside world: our experiments were only just that, and we didn't want to provoke attention from people who wouldn't understand what we were doing.

Douglas ran around a tree as I leaned against one of those walls, taking notes. _Skillful morph, got control more quickly than others on their first time out. High levels of mental control? Could be put to use elsewhere._

Morphing therapy had been an offhand joke when Marco and I were trying to break Jake's funk, but enough people had liked the idea that we went ahead with the study. The grant had come from the Andalite government: many of their warriors had dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder, or whatever the Andalite equivalent was. While they had created treatments that had alleviated it to some degree, those carried their own stigma. Ironically enough, many Andalites were more comfortable with a drastic but temporary loss of identity.

Douglas was one of the first human citizens in the study. Hospitalized after a suicide attempt, he was vulgar, cynical-and the best human morpher I had met.

He lay in the grass as I finished my initial observations. "Ready to head in?"

((No.))

"Fifteen more minutes."

So far the research was going well. Our hypothesis, that morphing could help improve people's state of mind, was holding up to tests. My simple lifestyle allowed me to live from the grant money- even with mysterious purchases being charged to my credit card-and if the clinic was officially opened, I could imagine myself working there well into the future.

"All right, that's it." I led him back to the office.

((I can morph on my own though, right?))

"For the study, we'd rather you didn't."

((Aww.)) But it was an acceptable disappointment, not the despondency I had once seen.

I faced the doorway as he demorphed, but it sounded like he almost managed swim trunks.

"Same time in two weeks?"

"I'll see you then."

Weeks, months-when had I last seen the twins? I'd tried to follow their progress, but found only tantalizing hints of whatever plans they were making. It wasn't until that day that, back in my apartment, the telephone rang.

"Cassie?" Madra spoke politely, restraining boundless excitement.

"Uh-huh?"

"We think you dropped your credit card when you were over here," Darwin, who could pull off a lie better, spoke. "We just found it now."

"Oh! Do you want me to come get it?"

"Yeah, if you want it," he laughed.

Another cab ride. Darwin wordlessly handed me the piece of plastic. We stood awkwardly, eying the grass. He dug into it with his foot.

"We're leaving," he said finally. "Our new foster home is way down south."

"So this is goodbye," Madra added.

I couldn't keep up the charade. "I know you got a ship."

Her eyes widened, while Darwin's hardened. "You're getting billed for everything. All our supplies. Why didn't you do anything?"

I shrugged.

"You knew all along."

"Yes."

"I can't believe it."

"I can," Madra smiled. "Thank you. Very much."

"You're welcome," I sighed.

Instinctively, I pulled both of them close, one in each arm. "Come home safe."

"We will," Darwin said. "And we'll bring them back."

"Tell Jake…" Messages impossible to be delivered, least of all by them. "Tell him hello."

"We will," he solemnly repeated.

"See!" Madra squirmed free to grin at Darwin. "We're gonna make it! Even she said!"

"You said we would all along, twit." A teasing voice of siblings.

Agonizingly, I let him go. "Take care."

And then it was back into the taxi for the long ride home.

I week or so later I invited Melissa to the Hork-Bajir colony. Not as employees or teachers, but visitors and friends.

She gaped at everything. "I need to get outside more."

"What are you doing these days?"

"I just got into college, actually. Sports science."

"Really? Congratulations!"

"Thanks." She sighed. "It's _so_ beautiful."

"Hi, Cassie," waved Toby. "This is Sorom Nald." A large male Hork-Bajir smiled down at us.

"Hi, Sorom," I called. "Nice to meet you."

Toby wandered over to a tree. "Now you scrape it like _this_." She etched a complex design into the bark. Cautiously, Sorom repeated the motion.

I looked around the valley. Tay was eating, Esh was telling a story to some children, Arsh was working on his hole, and Ket was watching Toby and Sorom. Beautiful.

Too beautiful, even. It had all been designed by the Ellimist-but he hadn't broken the bars of Jara and Ket's cages. That had been our job. The Ellimist was too subtle for those sorts of battles. His meddling came long beforehand. Setting up the scenarios, he never claimed to "interfere" as living species made their own decisions.

But how was that any different from what I had done? I had given Darwin and Madra the power to try and save the galaxy, and they had taken it. My wars were done, my place on Earth, fighting quiet battles one soul at a time-and I was winning.

So that was what it felt like to be an Ellimist.

It wasn't so bad.


	19. Epilogue: Phoenix

_Author's note: This, as you'll no doubt guess otherwise, is told by a completely different narrator than Cassie and has little to do with the previous plot. I consider it part of this story, so I'm putting it here._

**Epilogue: Phoenix**

The house is empty more and more these days. I don't mind. Melissa doesn't live on campus-I think she'll never be able to consider herself a regular student-but finds things to do.

So too must I, I suppose. The only thing holding me back (besides the obvious physical barriers) is that I'm afraid of her reaction if I depart too soon. If she finds me gone, will she feel guilty she didn't pay enough attention to me? Is her mind open enough to understand the full truth of who, or what, I am?

I'm in no rush, having nowhere to go _to_. My family wrote me off for dead, I'm sure, like my onetime comrades, and I don't know how they could react to seeing me in this state. Not just a _nothlit_, but a crippled one too-after everything I've been through, the irony is negligible. My wings singed, my greatest gift no longer useful.

I bide my time, therefore, waiting until I'm inspired. No despair, though: I still have hope that the moment will come. And in whatever way I can, I'll take flight.


End file.
